CAVALLO. - S. Paolo, addressing the Corinthians, urges them to act in such a way as to attain the goal, that is, heaven, as in the stadium where many run and only one wins the prize: «sic currite ut comprehendatis» (I Cor. 9, 24).
The c. thus represents the faithful man in the race of life; on an epitaph from Tharros there is engraved a c. which, in place of the owner's brand, bears the monogram of Christ (G. B. De Rossi, Del c. simbolico sull'iscrizione di Tharros, in Bull. di archeol. crist., 2nd series, 4 [1873], pp. 135-39 and pl. XI, 2); in an inscription from Treviri one sees the monogrammatic cross with the letters A and Ω between two c. (E. Le Blanc, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, Paris 1866, pl. XXXI, no. 188). Of a deceased person it is said in his inscription that he «cucurrit opere maxime», that is, he had run in the path of good works. The c. is also represented on the underside of terracotta lamps; examples of c. bearing an impressed cruciform mark have been found at Cartagine and Siracusa. Sometimes, however, the c. merely indicates the occupation pursued by the deceased, as in the well-known inscription of Domitilla in which the deceased Costante drives his two c., called Barbaro and Germano.